The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends that most companies spend 7 to 8 percent of gross revenue for marketing and advertising. And if you’re dedicating such significant resources to your company’s growth, you undoubtedly want to see a solid ROI for your efforts. 

Digital marketing campaigns have become an important component of most marketing repertoires, and they have taken on even more importance since the onset of the pandemic. While digital marketing is a good value, the costs still add up. These are a few simple things you can do to make sure you’re getting the biggest bang for your marketing buck. 

Be SMART About It

Just about every business coach will tell you that success begins with goal setting. But there is goal setting, and there is SMART goal setting. 

A SMART goal is:

• Specific: Simple and clearly defined
• Measurable: Meaningful with specific criteria
• Achievable: Attainable with the resources allocated
• Realistic: Relevant to your purpose and audience
• Timely: Targeted timeline with a clear beginning and end

When it comes to creating a marketing campaign, simply stating that you want to “increase revenue” is not enough. It’s important to define the specifics from the outset. Is there a particular market sector you want to get more business from? How much revenue do you want to generate? How many leads does it take to create the number of transactions you need to hit your target? 

Be Creative About It

Consumers are bombarded with thousands of images and ads every day. To create the measurable results you’ve defined with your SMART goal, you need to make sure your brand stands out. One way to do it is with attention-grabbing content. 

These days, customers are seeking value and personal connection with brands they trust, so it’s important that your content is personalized to your target audience. Who is your target audience? To answer that question, consider factors like age, location, gender, annual income, interests, etc. of your ideal customer.

Here are a few other factors to keep in mind when creating content:

• Ask your audience what they want and expect from your brand. Use polls, Q&A sessions, surveys and webinars to identify common points that will help you understand your customers’ needs better. Then you can create content that is personalized for them.
• Create content aimed at solving your customers’ problems. Give them information they can use and demonstrate how your product or service will help.
• Collaborate with influencers. They know exactly what content their audiences are likely to engage with. When you partner with an influencer, you open your brand to new prospects. 

Be Focused About It

It’s tempting to obsess over the little things. But more important than button colors or font choices are things like your message, your target market and the platform you’re using to push your content. Once you have perfected those things, you can go back and make adjustments that will yield incremental improvements.  

Be Quick About It

Whether your marketing is underperforming or is right on track, every campaign can be improved. One way to do it is with quick testing. 

The nature of your campaign will determine what you can or can’t test. For example, if you’re using paid ads as part of your marketing strategy, you can make adjustments and see the benefits or drawbacks within just a day or two.

Whatever marketing you choose, here are some things you can test:

• Headlines (CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is free and will quickly analyze your headline and score it based on its performance potential.)
• Images
• Format (video, text, images, audio)
• Long copy versus short copy

Testing reinforces your strategy by revealing a deeper knowledge of your customers, your business and your industry to help you meet your stated goals.

Marketing is all about the long game. It is an ongoing function of business and, when done strategically, will build momentum from one campaign to the next. Instead of going for the quick win, start with clear goals and a well-planned strategy so you can predict and measure the results. 

At Big Chief Creative Media, we measure our success by the growth of your business. We help you define your goals, develop your personalized strategy and quantify results. Contact us today!